DEAD, WORSHIP OF THE

The primitives' customs and practices connected with the dead often evoke a feeling of revulsion in modern minds, even though they were frequently carried out in a reverential attitude. Again, much that to moderns appears as worship was done to avert dangers that people fear can come from the dead. The casting out of the corpses in Iran to carnivorous animals was motivated by the desire to get the skeleton stripped of decayed flesh as soon as possible. The bones themselves, however, were held in high honor. Through the eating of parents, a practice that was found in some parts of Australia, the survivors wished to bury their parents in their own bodies. This action was regarded as so proper that family groups often carried these dead with them in their wanderings as long as possible, and often under great difficulties. On the other hand, grave offerings were often given only to restrain the dead from acts of vengeance; and the closing of the eyes and mouth and the avoidance of touching the threshold in carrying out the corpse were likewise thought of as measures of protection.

From a loving attitude toward the dead came the rites for laying out the corpse and the laments for the dead among some cultures of the world; platform burial facing the light; deposition of the body in the fruitful earth, often in a facing and standing position—interpreted by some as an indication of expected rebirth; the painting of the corpse with red ocher, the color of blood; the preservation of the corpse through a process of desiccation or mummification and embalming; the placement of the body in a stone grave chamber (stone itself being a symbol of permanence); and the practice of erecting megaliths—all bear witness to a loving and pious activity, the purpose of which was to assure the dead an "eternal dwelling." This concern culminated in the building of the pyramids.

Most offerings to the dead, funeral rites (including joint burial of living beings and funeral games), and the hospitable celebration of anniversaries—all point in the same direction. In the Urabon Festival in Japan, little lighted boats are put in the rivers to accompany the departed guests to the other world. The honoring of the dead also explains the custom of engraving the family tree on the grave monument and on a tablet in the home, and of making announcements of departures and returns and important family events before this shrine.

The disposal of the corpse by fire (cremation) did not necessarily presuppose an attitude of fear toward the dead. It could give quicker freedom of the spirit from the corpse and an earlier passage to a happier and brighter existence in the other world. The acceleration of the process of reincarnation is also a factor to be considered. The reverential rites of the dead, a cult of the dead in the strict

sense, reached their culmination in ancestor worship and in ruler worship.

See Also: ancestor worship.

Bibliography: c. m. edsman, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Tübingen 1957–65) 6:959–961 with good bibliog. g. eckert, Totenkult und Lebensglaube im Caucatal (Braunschweig 1948). j. g. frazer, Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead (London 1913–14). f. herrmann, Symbolik der Naturvölker (Stuttgart 1961) 188–202. h. bÄchtold-stÄubli, ed., Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, 10 v. (Leipzig 1927–42) 1:976–997; 5:1023–1167.

[a. closs/eds.]